RAS Infraport Private Limited

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On 3rd December 2009, the Kandla Port Trust (KPT) signed a 30 year concession (including a construction period of 24 months) with Ras Infraport Private Limited for developing Berth-13, a multi-purpose cargo berth (other than liquid and container) at Kandla Port in India.The port was located in the district of Kutch on the west bank of Kandla creek.The civil structure of berth was designed to handle 150,000 DWT Vessels but initially the berth would be handling 75,000 DWT vessels at 14m draft,the draught at the access channel would be 12.5m.The area of the berth was 16,500 sq.meters (300 mtrs. length and 55 mtrs.width) and back up area of 216,900 sq.meters. to accommodate open/storage area, weigh-bridges and other utilities.The Berth would cater to Food grains, Coal, Minerals, Sugar, Salt, Timber and other Dry bulk cargo with the base case cargo for the FY2013 expected to be around 3.0 million tons which was projected to grow more than 5million tonnes within a few years. Under the concession, the consortium was responsible for design, finance, construction, operation, maintenance and marketing of the cargo handling facility with a capacity of handling 5 Million Tons of cargo per annum.Kandla Port would provide supporting facilities like dredging of channel and berth, railway lines and back-up area. Various design parameters considered include capacity to carry superimposed load, mooring bollard capacity and dredge level at the berth among others to ensure infrastructure longevity and scalability to ensure optimal investment returns Ras Infraport Private Limited (RASIPL) had been promoted as a Special Purpose Vehicle in 2009 by a consortium of Alpha Vinimay (25%),Riviera Infra (25%), Sainath International (25%), Regal Shipping (25%) having business interests in diverse activities such as international trade, freight handling, infrastructure development,hospitality, on-shore shipping support services, logistics and warehousing services among others. The promoter group had very strong in house operations and management, EPCM and EPC capabilities along with strategic joint ventures with leading global partners in the field which would benefit the Company. The SPV (RASIPL) would implement the project.RASIPL won the tender through an international competitive bidding by quoting the highest revenue share of 31.62%. Since the project was located at a classified "Major Port" (Kandla Port), it was subject to tariffs regulated by the Tariff Authority of Major Ports (TAMP).These ports do not have the flexibility to determine certain charges and dues that are payable by vessels as TAMP had the authority to fix charges for pilotage, mooring, storage and other services rendered to vessels. RASIPL was permitted to recover tariff from the users of the project facilities and services in accordance with the tariff notification set out by TAMP vide its notification Order No.TAMP/35/2008-KPT dated 12 November 2008. Further, RASIPL would collect all cesses and charges from the users of the project facilities and services, as may be directed by KPT. The concession was signed on 3rd December 2009.The project attained financial closure in August 2012 with a debt equity ratio of 70:30. The estimated capital cost of the project was US$ 53.54 million. Financing comprised a US$ 37.5mn term loan, and US$ 16.04mn sponsor Equity. The 14-year 9-months term loan had a repayment schedule of 47 quarterly installments. SBI Capital Markets was the madated lead arranger. The participating banks in the term loan were State Bank of India ($9.64mn), IDBI Bank ($8.6mn), IIFCL ($6.42mn), EXIM Bank ($4.28mn), Indian Bank ($4.28mn), Indian Overseas Bank ($4.28mn). Construction on the project was expected to begin on 15th March 2011 (the Appointed Date for start of concession period) and complete by March 2013. RASIPL completed and attained commercial operation of the Berth-13 on 18th February 2013. The project details have been changed. The project has therefore moved from 2010 to 2012.